


If the Word is Yes

by MotherInLore



Series: Slayers West [7]
Category: Always Coming Home - Ursula K. Le Guin, Slayers (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Body Horror, Crossover, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied Mpreg, Mildly Dubious Consent, Oral Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 05:25:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7605262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherInLore/pseuds/MotherInLore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The consequences of five kettles of aphrodisiac soup, unevenly distributed.   Besides the tags, additional warnings for mood whiplash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If the Word is Yes

**Author's Note:**

> Those of you who are Just Here For The Smut and don't care about the rest of this series can skip the beginning and start after the first set of asterisks, secure in the knowledge that all you've missed is Xellos being irritating.

It wasn't an official part of the Finder's Lodge teaching, but everyone eventually learned how to find a little privacy on the road, to take care of one's personal needs. Therefore, Wehisho had headed out to the stables after dinner, to give Fefinum a wash and currying, she said, and she would, but afterward she would stay in the stall a little longer, lay back in the hay, and sing Before-the-Moon songs to herself and think of... she would think of Careful, she decided. Or Reeds-By-The-River. Someone from home, because she didn't want anything under the Moon to filter through to her days with these crazy foreigners. Which was why, of the Moon songs, she wasn't choosing any of the ones with Coyote in them. She sang in Kesh as she ran the currycomb over Fefinum's neck, tightening her pelvic muscles in rhythm: 

_How wide from lip to lip?_  
_Wide enough for a word to get out_  
_How wide from lip to lip?_  
_Wide enough for a man to get in_  
_If the word is yes, yes_  
_If the word is yes, yes,_  
_If lips part consenting,_  
_Enter in me, yes, yes..._

“My word, Swallow-san, what a bawdy song to address to a mule!” Xellos, Coyote's Son, was perched on the edge of the stall, looking down. Smiling.

“You speak Kesh?” Wehisho refused to be embarrassed.

“I hear meanings. And speak them. The words are just the way your mind shapes them.” 

“Hm.”

Xellos went on, “So, every time someone speaks your name, I see the swallow, flying- just as you do.” One white glove illustrated whipsawing curves that should have sent the mazoku falling backwards. And didn't, of course.

Wehisho considered this, momentarily diverted from her irritation at having her privacy invaded. “So that is why you always translate my name, as the others don't. But if that is how it works, why do I hear you speaking Tok?”

He shrugged. “How should I know? Perhaps because we met in Tuberhuny, not Wakwaha-on-the-mountain.”

Wehisho tilted her head to one side. “And can your appearance, too, alter to fit circumstances? The others have been at great pains to warn me- repeatedly- that the form I see is not your true one. Have you been spying in the guise of a ping or a pig person on the days you have not been walking with us?”

Xellos drew himself up in actorish indignation. “What a ridiculous idea! Surely, after all we've been through together, Lina-san should know me better than to expect me to lie.” One eye slitted open, and he turned his face sideways to her, half obscured by that swinging curtain of hair. “It would make things far too easy.” 

“They say they've seen you in other shapes.”

“Tsk, tsk, such ignorance. Look.” 

Xellos was abruptly next to Wehisho, standing so close that she could feel the folds of his cloak where they were caught between their two bodies. One gloved hand pressed her own against Fefinum's back. Wehisho's startled intake of breath brought her a faint whiff of an odd smell- a distinct impression of wet dog, overlaid with something sharper: Woodsmoke? Vinegar? 

"The fleas on your mule's back, if there were any, and if they could talk to you, would think your true form was that of a brown, five-legged thing like a starfish,” said Xellos' voice in her ear. “If then, one day, you suddenly had to mount up and ride away, the fleas would be very startled and would tell each other that your true form was something more like an enormous peach.” To Wehisho's relief, he did not actually make any attempt to touch her bottom; merely glanced eloquently. Then he stepped back slightly and released her hand. “However,” he concluded cheerfully with his usual blank smile, “That doesn't mean your hand is in disguise.”

“I... see...” Wehisho concentrated. “Lina spoke of various mazokude taking their true forms before attacking. What they were actually doing was putting... more of themselves into view?"

“Very likely. Whereas it is quite rare that _I_ need to do any such thing. I am very...” his voice dropped into a throatier register, and the hands were slithering their way into Wehisho's personal space again, “dexterous.” The last word was nearly a hiss, his lips mere inches from her ear.

Wehisho's face went stiff. “Back up, please,” she ordered. “Or better yet, go away. I came out here for some _privacy.”_

“ _You_ asked,” Xellos whined, but he did whisk himself back to his original perch on the stall partition. “And, while we're asking each other personal questions, would you mind telling me why you are still here in Choum-Rekwit? Not,” he added, voice dipping again, “that your company isn't charming,” and then he returned to his usual, lighter tone, “but the others have had less need of a guide lately and I was under the impression that you might be feeling rather homesick.”

_So that's why he thinks it's worthwhile to unsettle me,_ Wehisho thought. _And now the negotiations begin. Let's earn our Finder's Bells, then._ She forced the tension out of her face and shoulders and smiled. “You mean to say you didn't read the messages I sent home on the Exchange?”

“That would be rude!”

“So you did, then. But if you want me to say it out loud for some reason, I will. Lina and the others are dangerous. I'm not about to bring a walking volcano and her friends into my home if I can avoid it, or give a lot of twisted-neck warriors the idea that there's anything of value to be stolen from anywhere in the shadow of Ama Kulkun. So until I'm sure they won't follow me, I'm not inclined to go home.”

“Oh, dear, how inconvenient.” Here came the finger-on-the-side-of-the-chin gesture again. Over the last few ninedays, Wehisho had noticed Xellos didn't have as many different ways of holding his body as human people tended to. Or his face, which was, at the moment, pouting. “And here I've been trying to encourage them to head over that way.”

“I've noticed that,” Wehisho told him. “Why?”

“Your people seem to know some things that I would like to see our friends make use of.”

“What things? Make use of how?”

“In the ways you expect. Zelgadis-san will want a cure, Amelia will be interested in healing and governance, Lina-san will wish to wreak havoc, and I wish to advance my Master's agenda. And you are correct to expect some collateral damage. However-” He held up a finger and Wehisho thought, _now we come to it,_ “I have reason to think that, overall, the Na Valley might consider itself better off at the end, if you were to share what you know of the Carrion Gyre before our friends here get restless.”

“The... if I were to ask more questions now, would you answer them?”

“No.”

_Which means that the ransom he's asking has some consequences.”_ Wehisho shrugged. She wasn't about to make any decisions at the end of a long day, even without her body being preoccupied with its own desires. “I will consider what you have said,” she told him. “And if you don't have anything further, I would like to be alone for a while. 

“Certainly,” he said, and vanished.

The trick to dealing with people who played head games, Wehisho reflected as she moved from brushing Fefinum to mending tack, was to realize that keeping them out of your head was more important than doing anything to the inside of theirs. You didn't need to make them acknowledge that you'd won, or that you were right. You didn't need to see them as uncomfortable as they'd made you. All you needed to do was not let them move you. Therefore, Wehisho set about pretending the last few minutes had not occurred, and went back – not to singing Before the Moon songs, but to enjoying her time with a good friend and participating in the time-honored ritual of discussing their traveling companions behind their backs. Not that Fefinum actually did anything but listen, but after some two and a half moons with Lina, that was a blessing.

“...can't really blame Zelgadis for getting angry when I treated him like an adolescent;” Wehisho confided, “it was unmindful of me to apply Valley standards to someone from inside the Cyst, but I'm not entirely sure I had it wrong, either. Some days I think all _four_ of them should still be wearing undyed clothing. It was really funny at supper tonight, Fefinum, all of us sitting around, nobody looking at each other, and everyone squirming... I'll bet I'm not the only one planning on masturbating tonight... it's as if something got into the air...”

“Into the soup, actually.” Xellos was back, leaning out through the stall partition as if it were an open window, not solid boards.

“The soup?” There was no point in trying to suppress a blush; a creature that ate emotions had to know exactly what kind of effect he was having. Wehisho deliberately called up a memory of the giggle-fest that she and Amelia had gotten into at lunch. Maybe Coyote's Son would get indigestion.

“Indeed. Not normally a spell I use much, but there are reasons.” 

He was just aching for her to ask him why, so he could refuse to tell her, Wehisho just knew it. She wasn't sure she wanted to know, anyway. Some other questions were more urgent: "In all five kettles of soup?" 

He nodded, still smiling.

“The _same dosage_ in all five?” 

Another nod. Everyone but Lina and Gourry had shared one pot. Wehisho thought a while longer. She, Amelia and Lina had all been going to share a room tonight. “I think I'll sleep out here in the stable,” she decided.

“Pity your bedroll's back in the room. Shall I fetch it for you?

“No, no, I'll be fine. Once you go _away._ ” 

“Well, if you're sure...” Once again, Xellos' expression changed and his voice deepened. “It's only a matter of courtesy, after all. I can tell you that you were not my primary target with this little interference of mine, and it would be only polite to offer you any... assistance you might need in the current circumstances. If it's a matter of 'any pond in a wildfire' again...” he trailed off, invitingly. 

Wehisho remembered his earlier innuendo, too. _'Very dexterous.' Indeed. Also, pushy._ She looked him straight in the eyes – no mean feat in itself – and said, calmly, “as it happens, I do have at least one other pond available, and it doesn't have any leeches in it.” His eyebrow twitched and Wehisho awarded herself a point. “Now please go away and leave me alone.”

“At once!” He bowed himself briskly out, the stable wall was again solid, and Wehisho stuck out her tongue at the place he had been. 

Firmly, she set herself to finishing her job with the tack – the oil she worked into the bridle chased away any lingering scent of wet dog – and then dug among her things for another tool, one that had nothing to do with mending anything but frayed nerves. Her friend Shining had made it for her years ago, a hand-sized, knobby blob of solid glass, wine bottle green, with a flared end for gripping and a narrower end for...massage. 

Wehisho settled herself into the hay, thinking of Sandburn of the Serpentine, another glassblower, and doubly out of her reach in real life by dint of being a clan-brother, as well as married to someone else. He was beautiful, though, and behind her closed eyes the bright mind-puppets moved as sweetly as Shining's little tool, and the wickedness of the forbidden image brought with it its own kind of glee. Once Wehisho was done with the restless part, generous Fefinum was perfectly content to lie down and let her feel the warmth of the mule's broad back. That and the hay were enough to keep the mountain chill at bay for the night, and Wehisho slept peacefully. 

_*************_

It was late evening, the sun just going down. Lina had gone off to the girls' room immediately after supper, slamming the door that opened onto the plaza hard enough to shake loose a few flakes of stucco. Amelia had scuttled away sometime earlier. Zelgadis felt the need for some privacy, and asked Gourry if he'd be willing to hang out in the plaza for a while longer and leave Zel the room. “Sure,” the big man shrugged. “Our room really isn't big enough for tending to my weapons, anyway.” And then he'd pulled out his whetstone right then and there and started in on the broadsword. So that had been fine, except, when Zel opened the door to the guys' room, Amelia was there. With her face in Zel's pack. 

“What... the-”

She squeaked. “Imsorryumiwasjust- I'llbegoingnowsorry.”

“No," he said, hiding his embarrassment behind irritation, "you're going to explain what you were doing in my pack.” 

Her eyes went down, her blush spreading up from her cleav- Zel focused on the top of her head.

“It's stupid,” she muttered.

“Worse than that time with the parrot and the off-brand gambling talisman?”

“Well...” she picked at the drawstrings of the pack, winding them around her fingers, and her voice would probably have been inaudible to anyone with normal ears. “In the baths yesterday we were all just talking and Wehisho-san told us about her first boyfriend and how she used to be able to smell him on his clothes when...” she trailed off into silence. 

Zelgadis swallowed, hard, and took a deep, steadying breath. A tactical mistake, that. He was too sensitized right now to ignore the scent of vanilla she brought with her. Well, that was just too bad. “Amelia,” he said. “Princess. You know it can't be like that for us.”

The tears welled in her eyes. “You always say that. It's not true! What you mean is, in Seyruun, it would... or you mean we can't get married, but I – just for one night... we- we don't have to- do- you know... _everything,_ or anything you don't want to, I-I just, and Lina and Gourry wouldn't say anything, you know that, a-a-and...” she stuttered to a halt.

Zelgadis took another deep breath, and let it out, shakily. _Damn it, why does she force these things on me!_ But that wasn't fair, and he knew it. She had been ready to just leave, but he'd made her stay, made her admit what they both knew... The hard part was always remembering not to let anything start that they'd both regret. He'd known her for years, now. He'd learned self-control. He could... He took another breath, and sighed defeat. It had been too long since anyone had touched him. They were thousands of miles from Seyruuun. His human part – _the real me –_ was crying for... “Amelia... I want you to promise me something.”

“Wh-what?” She still wasn't looking up. Just as well, this was hard enough as it was. 

“Listen, Amelia. My sense of touch is very- distorted. Heat, and cold, come through very clearly, but if I try to touch something soft, like- like- and then, also I'm very strong. I could break things without even thinking about it. S-so I want you to promise me-” her eyes were turned full on him, now, the pupils wide and dark as the night sky, and as full of stars - “Promise me, if I hurt you- if I even start to hurt you- you'll tell me. Right then. And I mean _right then,_ not 'I can take this much, I'll say something in a second.' Promise me.”

He could see her shaking from here, hear her heart pounding. “I promise,” she whispered.

“Well. Then.” After another long moment, he slid the bar across the door. “Amelia... you might want to take your boots off."

_*************_

Amelia had disappeared almost immediately after dinner, muttering something about a temple, or a library... Lina hadn't quite caught it. Normally, Lina would have hung out in the courtyard with Gourry and sharpened all her knives, but right now – and she did mean _RIGHT_ now, she wanted some privacy. And the baths in this stupid town closed before sunset, so that left the room. Wehisho was going to be in the stables for quite a while with that stupid mule, so that was one less worry. She'd just have to hope whatever Amelia was doing took a while. Lina slammed the door of their room shut and shoved the bar into place, grateful for the inn's design of lots of doors around a courtyard, instead of long mazes of hallways. She didn't think she could stand the delay of a hallway right now. She got out of her clothes and into her nightshift as fast as she could without ripping anything, climbed into bed, and got the pillow arranged to her satisfaction.

Half an hour later, she concluded grimly that this was one of _those_ times. She'd brought herself to the peak just fine and then circled right back 'round into desire again. _Usually when this happens it means I'm about a week and a half out from That-Time-of-the-Month. I should check in with Amelia and make sure she's good to cover spells._ But that was for later. Lina ran her mind over the contents of her pack, trying to think of anything she could use now. _Nothing that's the right shape would be safe to put there....._ She'd just have to-

“Liinaaa...” Gourry's voice had a querulous, slightly hungover sound to it.

_“WHAT!”_

“Lina, Zel's barred the door of our room for some reason and I really, really want to go to bed. Could I please just bunk with the three of you tonight? I'll take the floor...”

Lina tried to think. _If he takes the far side of the room, by Amelia's bed, and if he falls asleep fast, and if I'm_ really _quiet..._ “OK,” she said aloud, as she scrabbled the bar off the door again, “Fine. Just take the side farthest from the door, so no one trips over you. How late is it, anyway? Have you seen Amelia come back?

“Nah, Heard her voice though- she was saying something about charity. So I think she's OK.”

“Fine. 'Night, Gourry.”

“ 'Night.”

Lina lay very, very still and made herself take one hundred fifty deep, slow breaths. Gourry settled down quickly, and for once, he wasn't snoring. She could almost pretend he wasn't there, except she could smell him. Not a stink, really. Just a pervasive aura of... guyness. That might actually help. She let her hand slide back down between her legs...

“Lina!” He was leaning over her, shaking her shoulder. Lina felt his hair brush her arm.

_“Gyaah!”_

“Lina, are you OK? Were you having a nightmare? You were thrashing around and kind of- kind of moaning...” He was breathing a little too hard, too, she noticed.

 _This is SO not fair._ “No!” she said, “Urg. I- I'm fine, Gourry. J-just leave me alone, OK?” She tried to push him back with her free arm, but it had gotten wound up in his hair somehow. And then when she tried to get her other arm out from underneath herself, the first arm pulled him closer in. He looked... she'd never seen him look like that...

“It's all right, Lina. Whatever you want... It's all going to be all right.” And then Lina was kissing him back. 

_***********_

Amelia finally pried the second boot off and looked up. Zel was sitting there, divested of swordbelt and cape but otherwise still fully clothed, regarding her gravely. He wasn't even blushing, and it was usually pretty easy to make him blush. Amelia knew her own face had to be steam-bath red at the moment. “Um, I guess maybe I should take off my tunic, too, huh?

“Whatever you like...” He still made no move toward her. Amelia's stomach sank in sudden doubt. _Does he not want any of this? Is it just that I'm a princess and he doesn't have a way to say 'no?'_

"...It doesn't matter to me.”

“Zel-san-er-chan, if you don't... it's all right if-”

“Nrrgh! No! That didn't come out right.” He rubbed his hand over his forehead, making a faint scraping sound. “It's that... I told you, I can feel heat but not textures, usually. Body heat seeps through clothing after a time, so as long as one or both of us is wearing anything thinner than damask, as far as my sense of touch is concerned, you might as well be naked. So whatever you want to wear, or take off, is fine. We can still...” he broke off at Amelia's aghast look. “Are you all right?”

“All those times...” Amelia meeped, “all those times I ran up to you and hugged you, and you went really still and... all those times.

Zelgadis smiled, reminiscently. “Well, yes...”

“Why didn't you say something? It must have been so awkward!” 

His smile broadened, and _there_ was the blush! “If I'd said anything,” he asked her, “would it have stopped you?”

__

“Of course!”

“Well. There you are, then.”

“....Oh.” And then the light dawned. “Oh! Oh, Zel...”

“People don't... touch me often, Amelia.” 

Amelia's first instinct was to hit him with a Flying Tackle of Respect, but he looked so- _He's scared,_ she realized suddenly. _I'm used to him being the one who knows what he's doing out on the road, the one who'll protect me. But he's even more nervous than I am._ She stepped cautiously over to the bed and settled next to him, twisting slightly so she could look at him straight on. She put one hand on Zel's shoulder, and let the other one slide gently up the planes of his cheekbone, to his forehead, until she could bend the hair back out of his eyes and slick it back behind one seashell ear. It took a bit of force, but once moved, the hairs stayed put, which was a relief. She didn't want those needle-sharp points scratching her as things got more intense.

Zelgadis stayed perfectly still, watching her, breathing. When she moved in to kiss him, his lips parted slightly to meet hers, and a hand snaked behind her and settled between her shoulder blades, light as paper for a breath or two, and then slowly pressing her to him as he grew more sure of exactly where she began and ended. The shift of his muscles felt very strange; not as if they were moving under skin, but as if a whole, solid thing were somehow changing shape; burls of wood appearing and subsiding in a tree trunk. His face was fine-grained sandstone, just barely not too rough to stroke, but his lips were smoother, like quartz, and the inside of his mouth felt and tasted reassuringly human. Amelia ran her tongue around the inside edges, trying, and failing, to find the point where wet flesh melded with stone, and then just relaxing into the enjoyment of an embrace she'd been dreaming about since she was fourteen.

When they came up for air, Zel's eyes were wide with shock. “When did you learn how to do _that?”_ he demanded.

Amelia leaned her head against the hollow of his shoulder. “Zel-chan, you remember all those times I invited you to picnics and boating parties and things with the other nobles in Seyruun, and you said they were stuffy and boring and it 'wasn't your place' anyway?”

“You mean...”

"I really, really, wish you'd gone sometimes.”

His eyelids clicked very slightly when he blinked. “I... see.” There was another long pause before he went on. “Put it like that, and so do I.”

“I guess we just have to make up for lost time now, huh?” She twinkled at him.

“I guess so.” 

_*******_

Lina had run out of words. She'd almost felt them go, running away like melting wax under the heat of Gourry's hands. All the words she'd told herself over the last five years... the ones about being Just Friends, and about being Not That Kind of Girl. The ones that said, _boys, eww..._ The ones that started, _What if something happens?_ and went on to supply details. All those silly words. All gone.

The only word left was _yes._ Gourry's fingers running through her hair, yes, and his broad, strong arms pulling her up against his chest. Yes, he had her surrounded, and yes, she felt completely safe, and blazingly happy. _The rest of his life. He promised. Yes._ She rose up on her knees so she could kiss him properly without getting a crick in her neck, and Gourry answered by running a finger down her spine and then cupping half her bottom in one hand, fingers straying inward. He kissed his way down her throat, then between her breasts, and then each nipple in turn, sending shivers down her spine and making her squirm against his hand. A few stray words surfaced again, popping up like bubbles.

“I guess- you don't think- they're too small _now.”_

Gourry pulled back far enough to look her in the face, and blinked. “I never said I didn't _like _them that way! I'd remember if I had,” he added inaccurately. His expression softened. “They make me think of...bunnies.”__

_“Bunnies?!?”_

“I guess...” he circled a nipple with a thumb. “Something little and neat and delicate that I want to take care of.”

_That was...!_ She stopped herself from invoking fireballs. Actually, that was kinda sweet, Lina decided. Even while despoiling her maiden innocence (and he'd better not stop despoiling her now) he was just so... nice. “Guys are really funny-looking when we're naked,” he added ruefully, and Lina looked down, startled, and then had to stop herself from laughing.

_It looks like that? They spend so much time bragging about it and it looks like THAT?_ From the talk she'd heard from bandits and mercenaries and other lowlifes over the years, all about their “siege engines,” or their “one-eyed snakes,” Lina had been imagining something – well, scary. Only what she could see now looked like nothing so much as a sturdy, cheerful mushroom, poking out of a bed of gold-brown moss, with a dewdrop at its tip. It wasn't until she reached down to touch it that she realized it was longer than her hand; it only looked small against the mountainous Gourry. She ran a thumb around the mushroom's cap. The skin of it was so soft...

“Urk,” said the mountain, “G-gods, yes. _Please!”_ Gourry engulfed Lina's hand in his own and squeezed tighter. “Like that. Yes.”

But Lina felt like things were getting awfully one-sided. She pulled herself up against him again and wrapped her legs around his hips. “ _That,_ ” she told him firmly, “goes _here.”_

For a long moment, he just looked at her. A solemn, searching, look: his mouth still, his eyes like- like huge, blue... blue things. Then, slowly, he moved himself into place. Lina tensed, bracing herself against the moment when he pierced the last barrier, the flash of pain she knew would be coming, but it didn't happen right away. Instead, he set himself lengthwise in her cleft, rubbing against her the way the pillow had earlier, but much, much more enjoyably, only gradually shifting his angle of approach so that the tip of his cock pressed against the edge of her opening, and then pulling away again, and then coming closer in... Lina pressed her face into the side of his neck, clinging as tightly as she could, and let him guide her, waiting, as they rocked together. _I can feel it pinching. Any moment now he's going to push through..._ She arched her back just enough to look down at the two of them. She wanted to see it happen. _Oh!_ It wasn't the tip, pressing against her, it was the base of the shaft. _It wasn't like I thought it would be. He's... we- We're joined. He's inside me, and we're joined._

She tilted her head up to kiss him again, suddenly impatient with any part of herself that wasn't touching Gourry. The slight change of angle shifted him inside her, too, so that the pull of fitting herself around him was counterbalanced by long, hard strokes along a nerve she hadn't really known was there, one that sent waves of heat up through her core and made her writhe. “There,” she hissed, “Yes. Hard as you can.” 

Gourry responded by tightening his hands around her hips and huffing a tickling breath over her shoulders, and then bucking like a great horse, plunging deeper and deeper yet, as they both grew wet with sweat and more secret, slippery fluids. Lina gasped, even her last few words driven from her mind, and held on with everything she had. _Joined. Yes._

_*******_

In the fantasies Amelia had treasured years ago, before the fall of Zoanna, even, Zelgadis would have found his cure, (and a horse,) and swept her up on its back to take her away somewhere, where the two of them would have settled into an ecstatic and mindless whirl of the senses. _Thank goodness I've learned a thing or two since then._

 _This_ ecstasy was anything but mindless, for either of them. Amelia guessed that fear of hurting her, as much as his personal preference, made Zel hold himself back from anything more forceful than kisses and light, fluttering strokes of his cool hands that made her skin shiver. He certainly had no objection when she hugged him tightly, or shoved him backward into the mattress so she could drape herself on top of him. _Or maybe he's just indulging that mile-wide passive streak he's got and he likes having someone else be in charge._

Amelia, too, was holding back, for fear of hurting him. She was holding back words. _I love you was_ out, because of her promise earlier in the evening: _just for tonight._ She also couldn't tell him she liked his body the way it was; liked the thrill of knowing he could break her bones with one hand and knowing he wouldn't. Liked the way she could trace the history of her own embraces on the warmer and cooler patches of his stony skin, meeting herself and moving away to warm up the more neglected parts. She _loved_ the prickle of his not-quite-fangs when he kissed her. But she couldn't say any of that. Zel only ever expressed appreciation for his chimera body when it had saved his life, and then grudgingly. He, too, she imagined, had treasured his fantasies of what he would do when he was human again.

Even holding back, there was no shortage of pleasure to cherish. Zelgadis was an indefatigable kisser, using his lips and tongue to learn her body as the dulled nerves of his hands couldn't. As she ran her hands along his ribs, where his skin was smooth as river rock, he kissed her eyes, the spots just below the backs of her ears, the hollow of her throat, the insides of her elbows, her collarbone, her breastbone, her navel. Amelia ran a thumbnail up his spine, pressing hard to prevent it sounding like a blackboard. Zel looked up, startled. “I felt that!” He looked at her, awed. “Not just the heat, but the pressure of your thumb. How-?”

She giggled. “I practice, silly!”

Zel's expression went blank for a moment, and then he blushed again. “Must have been quite the picnic,” he muttered. 

Amelia shook her head. “Oh! No. No. Nobody gets that intense at a picnic. Well, my sister did sometimes but... that wasn't the practice I meant, anyway. The Charity-to-the-Downtrodden Chokehold and the Respect-for-Your-Elders Nerve Pinch both take a lot of hand strength. It's just a matter of figuring out how to apply it in other situations,” she concluded matter-of-factly. 

“Ah.” Zelgadis looked at her, a funny little smile quirking his mouth. “Three cheers for study, then,” he said, and went back to kissing her. He started at her insteps, this time, working his way upward. Amelia sat up and bent over him, the better to exert that hand strength on the project of running her fingers through his wiry hair. Her sister's voice echoed in her mind, laughing: _Everyone has all kinds of rules about who can make babies, but hands can go just about anywhere._ Anywhere... One of Zel's cool fingers landed on the crease of her thigh, making her yelp in startlement. Their eyes met. “Mei-chan...” his voice was just above a whisper. “Do you want me to go on?”

Breathless, she nodded. He hooked his fingers in the waist of her underthings and slid them down, then set his hands on her knees to part them. Amelia leaned back against the rucked-up bedclothes and concentrated on not trembling so hard she put him off. A few more long moments passed as his hands slid upward, settling once again at the creases of her thighs and then he opened her like an apricot, and she felt his tongue against her clit.

She let out a squawk of laughter. “That _tickles!”_ His only response was a snort- of laughter too, or surprise? – but the puff of air he let out also tickled, and then he went on doing what he was doing, but with a little more pressure, making Amelia gasp and clutch the bedclothes, arching her back to keep from writhing away from him. There was... so much. His cool, hard lips and his hot, silken tongue, working together in perfect harmony. The prickly ends of his hair like sparks against her thighs. Amelia moaned and ground her head back into the pillow, and he started moving faster. It was like being thirsty and drinking sweet wine; every stroke slaked her need for an instant, and then inflamed her further, until she couldn't stand it any longer. She forced her hands to unclench and reached down to tweak his ears. “Get up here, Zel,” she panted, “I want to hold you.”

Obediently, he pulled back and settled himself next to her on the bed. Amelia wrapped herself around him. One arm went under his neck, both of her legs wrapped around one of his, and she buried her face in his neck again, feeling slightly too shy to try tasting herself on his lips. Besides, no matter how strong he was, Zel's mouth probably needed a rest by now.

“You're so warm,” he sighed, and his own arms wrapped around her, tight enough to matter at last, and the leg she had mounted moved against her, and _this_ was what Amelia's body wanted. _Well, almost,_ she thought wryly. _If my body got_ everything _it wanted I'd show up in Seyruun with the first baby already in arms and another one on the way, but this is close enough for now._ She tilted her hips to rub up against him harder.

She had one hand still free to explore, and she used it to free Zel from his own remaining underthings. _I don't care what he says about what he can and can't feel; I don't want him wearing more clothes than I am._ The hair around his loins curled like springs, and the ends had either been worn smooth from years of walking, or they were curled so tightly under that it didn't matter. Exploring the mass of it with anything tenderer than a hand might be risky, to say nothing of how many of her own hairs those coils could pull out, but for now... for now they were simply an entertaining contrast to the polished-marble smoothness of the member that rose from them. Amelia started to turn and bend, to do for him as he had done for her.

Two stony fingers caught her chin and guided her upright again. “Just stick with your hands for now, please, Mei.” His voice was oddly dry and formal. It was the way Zel usually sounded, Amelia reminded herself sternly. Just because the last hour or so had been different didn't mean she had the right to feel hurt. But there was a faint hint of vengeance in her decision to reach first between her own legs, to bring her hands to that task already wet, slippery, and smelling of brine. _One more Charity-to-the-Downtrodden Chokehold,_ she thought, _and Love will conquer all. Even unto skittish chimeras._

Time melted, moving not in ticks or heartbeats but in pulsing waves. Their bodies moved not quite in tandem, crashing together and pulling back only slightly, growing even more slippery every time they touched. Amelia bit back a ragged cry as the wave broke over her, leaving her limp and panting against Zel's chest for a few moments. After which she propped herself up on one elbow and went back to work on him with fierce concentration, eyes glittering. 

“Mei,” his voice came in gasps. “Mei-chan, stop, you need to-”

“No. I want you to feel like you make me f-”

“Mei, please- Mei!” His next words were lost in a sound between a groan and a howl. One hand hit her chest with enough force to send her flying off the bed to land with a crash against a storage cupboard. By the time Amelia had her breath back and her head had stopped spinning, Zel had managed to smother the flames and the spot on the bedspread was only charred. Amelia blinked.

“...Zel...” he was hunching in on himself again, still breathing in rasps. Those lovely hands of his twitched as if he were pulling an invisible cloak around himself. He clawed briefly at his hair to bring the front locks back down over his forehead. 

His voice had become a subterranean mutter. “...tried to warn you...”

“I know. I should have listened.” Amelia pulled herself upright and put a hand on his shoulder. “I'm sorry. All this time I thought you were just being neurotic about the way you look. I never once thought it might go... deeper.”

“I don't exactly advertise the fact.” After a short, fraught silence, he added, “I think the-” he waved one hand vaguely at the bedspread – “I think it has something to do with the golem component, because once it cools off it looks like pumice. There are just some things that rocks are not meant to do.... Most of the worst stuff is from the golem, really. If Rezo had stopped with the demon I swear I would have forgiven him before you and I ever met.”

Amelia snugged in next to him on the edge of the bed and put her arm around his waist, but didn't say anything. _I can at least listen now, even if I didn't before._ After another silence, he said, “The worst thing... the very worst thing of all, is that there _is_ a cure. I even know how to do it, in outline. I've known since Taforashia. Rezo showed me; even as he was telling me there was no way to fix what he'd done, he was showing me a way...”

“Zel?”

“He put his soul into a different human body.... I could see it all limned out: I'd go home for once. One of my half-brothers would probably be the best match... only, seeing Xander's face in the mirror every morning, would have been almost as bad as this, even if I'd gone though with... Anyway, once I came to my senses, I still thought maybe I'd gather up a good hank of hair from one or all of them, and then go find that batty alchemist who taught Eris how to copy Rezo... If we were able to combine traits from different brothers the match might be even closer. I'm sure we'd end up with a suitable host eventually. After enough copies had died. Because, at least one would have to.”

_Oh. I see._ Aloud, she said, “But instead, we're out here, trekking around the Range of Light, sifting folklore for hints of forgotten spells from before the time of the Barrier.”

“Yes. The biggest difference between me and my... ancestor. However badly I want it, there are some things I won't do for a cure.”

Amelia took another deep breath. “Zel? I- I know I'm not in a good position to ask for promises right now, having just broken one...”

“Nonsense. You promised to tell me if you were hurt; you didn't promise to listen.”

“I should have... But, can you promise you won't let these last few minutes sour your memory of the last hour or two? This has been – will always be – very precious to me. All of it.”

“Will it really be enough for you? If it's all we get?”

Amelia bit down on her irritation. He was just being silly – she could already think of ways to work around this newly discovered handicap of his, if he really wanted her.. maybe he didn't... then she realized what the real question was, and answered it: “I'm not going to turn into Eris – or Ozel – any more than you're going to turn into Rezo. It helps a lot, you know; knowing what the stakes really are and what you're really choosing between. I know it isn't just you still thinking of me as a little kid, or...”

“No, Mei-chan. You haven't been a little kid for a long time... “ He hissed a small, voiceless laugh at a joke he didn't explain, shaking his head. Then he turned back to her, his face clear and calm, his shoulders relaxed. “And yes, I can promise to remember tonight happily, too. Thank you for- for breaking me out.”

She shivered slightly- not with any emotion she could define, and then she stood up and cupped his chin in her hands. She didn't give him another kiss he wouldn't quite feel. Instead, she lowered her lips to just above his forehead and blew, leaving a gentle, spreading warmth of breath across his face. “I should go.”

“Amelia...”

“Yes?”

“Remember to take your boots with you.”

_****************_

There were still voices coming from the girls' room: shouting, actually.

“Light- come- FOOORTH!”

“Oh, Gods, Gourry- you did NOT just say that.” But it sounded like Lina was laughing. Amelia took her hand off the door latch and went to see if they were still serving food in the plaza. It wasn't as if she was likely to sleep for a while, anyway.

_****************_

The next morning, Wehisho picked up the black cloak she found draped over her, studied the yellow and red embroidery that outlined the edge of the upper capelet, folded it all carefully, and left it under Fefinum. _If you act pushy, Coyote's Son, you'll get pushed back._ She spent a few minutes untangling straw out of her hair and headed to the inn's courtyard, feeling pleased with herself.

_*******_

Nobody asked anybody else where they had been, over breakfast. Or how they had slept. It seemed everyone had something pressing to take care of as soon as they finished eating, and they all went their separate ways as soon as they could.

_*******_

By noon the following day, Lina had found cause to toast Gourry with fireballs nearly half a dozen times. Amelia and Zelgadis took turns healing him up. “Is it just me,” Zel asked him the fourth time, “Or is she worse than usual today?”

The swordsman shrugged and winced. “I've kinda been expecting it,” he admitted. “Every once in a while something scares her, you know, and she has to go and prove that she's really tough and doesn't need me or anybody.”

"Oh.” Amelia's forehead wrinkled as she she joined them. “But I haven't seen any slugs since we left the river.”

“Not that kind of scared,” Gourry said.

“What do you mean, then?”

To Amelia's surprise, the big man turned pink. “I'm n-not sure I should say...” he started to stammer, and then suddenly he squared his shoulders. “Or, maybe I should at that. Oy!” He raised his voice, “You're not getting rid of me that easily, Lina!” 

Lina looked up from the dagger she was polishing grimly. “What?”

Gourry got to his feet, took one great booted stride, and stooped over her. His face had gone from manic to tender. “I said,” he told her, taking a lock of her hair gently between his fingers, “You're not getting rid of me that easily. Doesn't matter how mad you get or what horrible things you say, I'm sticking with you for the rest of my life.”

“Y-you- FIREBALL!”

This one had a significant blast wave with it. Gourry flew through the air and landed back at Zel's feet. “See?” He groaned at him and Amelia, lifting one charred finger in triumph, “Told ya. Scared.”

“Ah,” Zelgadis said. He and Amelia got back to work.

_*******_

Some weeks later, Lina noticed Amelia's new pendant. “I've seen gemstones caged in gold wire like that, but why a piece of pumice?”

“It's... it's a shrine-maiden thing. And... kind of private.”

“Is that why you're hiding it under your clothes?”

“Yeah... it's a kind of... well, it's a, um... a meditation tool.”

“Well, whatever works.” Lina yawned. “If it turned out to be a bust-developing spell or something I'd tell you it was my turn.”

“I think yours are growing though, a little bit.”

_“Really?”_ Lina ran to find a mirror and left Amelia to think in peace.

**Author's Note:**

> "Eyegeonkama (Yes-singing)," Lyrics by Ursula K. LeGuin, Music by Todd Barton, copyright 1985, used without permission.
> 
> Those of you stubbed your toes on my head-canon (wow, that's a mixed metaphor) and went: "Hey, since when does Zelgadis have half-brothers?" can read about them in my stand-alone story, "The Prodigal Zel." 
> 
> Anyone who wants to elaborate on "That time with the parrot and the off-brand gambling talisman," feel free- I have no idea what they're talking about.


End file.
